Fred Smith: The Legacy-Worthy Visionary Who Delivered the Modern World Overnight

Fred Smith was the pioneer of an industry and the founder of FedEx. He was the heart and soul of FedEx; its People-Service-Profit culture, values, integrity, and spirit. He was a mentor to many and a source of inspiration to all. He was also a proud father, grandfather, husband, Marine, and friend.

Smith came up with the idea for FedEx while a student at Yale University, writing a term paper proposing a revolutionary way to deliver time-sensitive shipments. He famously received only an average grade on the paper.

He founded the company as Federal Express in 1971 in Little Rock, Arkansas, and it began operations in Memphis two years later, with 389 employees using 14 aircraft to deliver 186 packages to 25 US cities. The company grew steadily over the next 50 years, buying its first seven Boeing 727s freighters after two years of lobbying led to Congress deregulating air cargo.

It also bought a series of other companies to help it grow, both internationally and with ground services in the United States, creating both a FedEx Ground unit that moved most of its goods by truck and delivery vans and FedEx Freight, which handled pallet-sized shipments of freight by truck. And it also bought Kinko’s copier centers and rebranded them as FedEx Office locations.

When Smith announcing his retirement as CEO in 2022, he wrote, “We were a small startup and had our share of skeptics. But that first night of operations set into motion what would become a global connector of people and possibilities that would change our world for the better,” in a letter to FedEx employees

 

On a personal story, in the spring of 1985, 40 years ago, during his junior year at Yale, Richard Bradley answered an anonymous ad in the Yale Daily News. It was a single sentence and read something like: “Researcher wanted for project—$500 a week.” Interested parties were instructed to write to a PO Box.

At the time, Bradley’s parents were going through a difficult divorce, and he was eager to avoid going home for the summer. The offer of $500 a week was especially appealing because it would cover rent at the notoriously shabby Lynwood apartment building in New Haven and pay for gas to visit his girlfriend, who was interning at the Williamstown summer theater festival in Dorset, Vermont.

So, he wrote to the PO Box and hoped for a reply. One came quickly: Fred Smith, Yale class of ’66 and founder and CEO of Federal Express who famously, he had written the outline for the company as his senior thesis, earning a grade of C and wanted to hire someone to help him write a book.

The book was to focus on the First Yale Unit, a group of Yale men who had learned to fly and volunteered to fight as an aviation unit in World War I.  Fred Smith was fascinated by these men. He had a deep interest in aviation pioneers and a complex view of patriotism and he himself had flown combat missions during two tours in Vietnam. Some members of the First Yale Unit had, like Smith, also been members of Skull & Bones.

Bradley responded with a long letter to Smith, this was before email, explaining why he was the right person for the job. To his surprise, Smith hired him without ever meeting him in person. Their first meeting took place in Memphis, where FedEx is headquartered. Upon arrival at Smith’s office, Bradley was greeted by Fred Smith’s bemused administrative assistant, June Fitzgerald, who pointed out that he was an hour early because he hadn’t realized there was a time change between New Haven and Memphis. June, who passed away in 2013, was remembered as both deeply kind and formidable; Bradley fully sensed she could have run FedEx on her own in a crisis.

That summer, Bradley spent countless hours in Yale’s awe-inspiring Sterling Memorial Library, scrolling through microfilm to learn all he could about the First Yale Unit; a group driven by patriotism, a sense of adventure, and a kind of upper-crust noblesse oblige. Every Friday, he would fill a large FedEx envelope with microfilm printouts and send them to Smith in Memphis.

Bradley also spent time with Smith in New York when he visited for business. They had lunch at the Yale Club, during which Smith took a call from his congressman and that detail that impressed Bradley, since the call came from the congressman, not the other way around. During a ride through Manhattan in Smith’s limousine, they discussed Yale’s clerical and technical workers, who were organizing a union. Fred Smith asked for Bradley’s opinion, and Bradley said the union effort was the result of Yale’s long-standing mistreatment of those employees. Smith appreciated the candor and his own views on the importance of fair treatment for employees aligned with Bradley’s assessment, though Smith likely held those views more intensely and with greater consequence.

Though the entire experience was heady for a 20-year-old, (and in 1985 time, Fred Smith was 40 years old.) so the moment that stood out most came during a visit with Fred Smith to the Long Island home of Robert Lovett, a member of the First Yale Unit who had served as Assistant Secretary of War during WWII and Secretary of Defense under President Truman. Lovett, then 90, was still a figure of great dignity and intellect. Bradley was fully aware of how fortunate he was to be sitting in a room with two aviation pioneers from different eras; one from the age of biplanes, the other from the era of global logistics. The meeting ended with a quiet but memorable moment: Smith politely asked Bradley to leave the room so he could speak privately with Lovett about Skull & Bones a topic not to be discussed in front of non-members. (Skull and Bones, also known as The Order, Order 322 or The Brotherhood of Death, is an undergraduate senior secret student society at Yale University),

The book on the First Yale Unit was never complete. Smith, understandably, lacked the time to write it. Bradley used the material he gathered that summer for his senior thesis instead. He sometimes wondered whether Smith ever truly intended to write the book, or whether his goal had simply been to learn more about the men of the First Yale Unit, the men who, seventy years earlier, had also taken bold, risky steps. Smith seemed to feel a deep connection with them, as though seeking out a bridge between their past and his own legacy.

After that summer of ‘85, Bradley fell out of touch with Fred Smith. In hindsight, he believed he should have made more of an effort to maintain the relationship. But he had no interest in going into business and, by his own admission, was not savvy about networking at the time.

Like so many others, Bradley was saddened to learn that Fred Smith had died on June 21 in Memphis day at age 80. Smith was born on Aug. 11, 1944, in Marks, Mississippi.

Fred Smith had led a complex life, but his achievement in founding Federal Express was undeniable. Like the men of the First Yale Unit, he changed the world.

Story by Bradley shared on Facebook. https://www.richardbradley.net

 

Frederick W. Smith

 

• Served as an officer in the U.S. Marine Corps from 1966 to 1970 where he flew over 200 missions as a FAC in OV-10 Broncos.
• Founded the FedEx Corporation in 1971 and served as Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer of the company.
• Responsible for providing strategic direction for all FedEx Corporation operating companies, including FedEx Services, FedEx Express, FedEx Ground, FedEx Freight and FedEx Kinko’s. FedEx Express was the first service company to win the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award in 1990. FedEx has consistently been ranked on FORTUNE magazine’s industry lists, including “World’s Most Admired Companies” and “America’s Most Admired Companies.”
• Named 2006 Person of the Year by the French-American Chamber of Commerce and CHIEF EXECUTIVE magazine’s 2004 “CEO of the Year.”
• Served as chairman of the U.S.-China Business Council, Chairman of the French-American Business Council, and Co-Chairman of the U.S. World War II Memorial Project.

See also:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/22/obituaries/fred-smith-billionaire-founder-of-fedex-is-dead-at-80.html

https://achievement.org/achiever/frederick-w-smith/

https://www.commercialappeal.com/story/money/industries/logistics/2025/06/21/fred-smith-fedex-founder-dies-obit/4307117001/

https://dailymemphian.com/article/52640

 

Fred Smith and Frank Maguire

Frank Maguire was one of corporate America’s most influential innovators and storytellers. A founding senior executive at Federal Express, he also held key leadership roles at Kentucky Fried Chicken, ABC, and American Airlines during critical periods in each company’s growth. He served as a close advisor to Fred Smith during the FedEx startup and helped shape the culture that would define the company. Smith credited Maguire’s leadership and guiding principles—his “absolutes”—with turning FedEx’s promise of “absolutely, positively overnight” into an operational reality. That culture contributed to FedEx being named “Top Corporation of the Decade” by Fortune magazine.

Comment: It is interesting to note that both Federal Express and Kentucky Fried Chicken changed and shorted their company names to FedEx and KFC. These re-brandings were more than just cosmetic; they reflected broader shifts in marketing strategy, consumer behavior, and brand identity.

Federal Express, founded in 1971 by Fred Smith, officially rebranded to FedEx in 1994. The change capitalized on the shorthand that customers were already using. It created a faster, more modern-sounding name that aligned with the company’s promise of speed and reliability. The rebrand also reflected the company’s evolution beyond express shipping into a global logistics and supply chain solutions provider.

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• The Fedex Arrow was Accidental, but became Intentional: The FedEx 1994 rebrand logo designer, Lindon Leader, stated that the idea for the arrow wasn’t initially in the design process, but he incorporated it when he noticed the shape appearing between the “E” and “x” in one of the draft logos and then intentionally refined and included the arrow.

 

Kentucky Fried Chicken, originally established by Colonel Harland Sanders in 1952, adopted the abbreviation KFC in 1991. The shift was partially driven by a desire to modernize the brand and respond to growing health concerns around the word “fried.” The new name also gave the company a cleaner, more adaptable identity that resonated with international markets and younger consumers.

In both cases, the shortened names allowed these iconic companies to evolve while preserving their brand recognition that kept them relevant in a rapidly changing marketplace.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYZ3GvnsaII  Frank Maguire – Former Co-Founder of Federal Express

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYBj1Q-tYWc   Francis Xavier Maguire

Francis (Frank) X. Maguire

May 27, 1933 — April 12, 2010https://www.danielsfuneral.com/obituaries/francis-frank-maguire

Maguire’s career spanned both corporate and public service. He worked for ABC Radio and served in the executive offices of Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. He was one of just five people selected to help imagine and launch national initiatives like Project Head Start and the Special Olympics.

Known for his storytelling and motivational insight, Maguire became a respected speaker and mentor. He was famously the right-hand man to Colonel Harland Sanders at KFC and is remembered as a cultural icon of the “Three Feet from Gold” philosophy. Widely regarded as one of the most celebrated business thinkers of his time, Frank Maguire had an extraordinary ability to recognize and elevate the human potential in every endeavor.

Later, he headed Maguire Communications, Inc., where he shared his leadership philosophy through public speaking and seminars, teaching from a set of “Maguire Absolutes”—immutable truths shaped by experience. His talent for recognizing and nurturing talent was legendary: he played key roles in the early careers of Ted Koppel and Charles Osgood while at ABC.

Frank’s website: www.FrankMaguire.com  now up for sale

https://www.ovations.com.au/speakers/frank-maguire

Frank’s Wife Carmel Rivello Maguire, Mother, Author, Speaker, and CEO of Carmel Rivello Productions

Frank was one of the “Dirty Thirty” who helped launch FedEx and held major executive positions at KFC (where he joked, he was “the Colonel’s babysitter”), ABC (where he hired Dan Rather), and American Airlines. Frank was always in the right room at the right time, with a lesson to match.

Frank’s message centered on realization by helping people discover their self-worth and the worth of others. He was known not just for his accomplishments, but for his ability to uncover hidden potential in people, the Relationship Riches, the true treasures of any organization.

Frank Maguire was a great storyteller. Here’s a favorite story Frank told from Anthony de Mello, the late Jesuit spiritualist, that captures his message about believing in your own potential and refusing to accept limiting expectations.

 

The Eagle and the Chicken

A farmer once found an eagle’s egg and, not knowing what it was, placed it in a hen’s nest. The egg hatched alongside the others, and the young eagle grew up believing it was a chicken. It scratched the ground for worms and insects, followed the other chicks around the barnyard, and mimicked their behavior.

Although it looked different, the eagle never questioned its identity. It clucked and cackled like the rest, and when it flapped its powerful wings, it never flew more than a few feet off the ground because that was what the other chickens did. It had been told, “That’s as high as chickens fly,” and it accepted that as truth.

Years passed, and the eagle grew old. One day, it looked up and saw a magnificent bird soaring high above in wide, graceful circles. Amazed, it asked, “What kind of bird is that?”

“That’s an eagle,” someone replied. “It belongs to the sky. But don’t get ideas. You’re just a chicken.”

The old eagle watched in silence, then turned away. And it lived out the rest of its life grounded, never realizing that it had always been meant to fly.

  

Frank Maguire said:

Some people believe that the best way to live is to never expect too much—so they won’t be disappointed. Those are often the same people who try to lower the expectations of others. But if you ask me, that’s a dreadful way to think.

The real danger isn’t in aiming too high and falling short. The real danger lies in aiming too low—and hitting the mark. The obstacle that stops most of us from reaching our full potential is our own underestimation of what we can do. We’re too willing to believe the voices that tell us we’ll never make it.

Any permanent behavior change requires that you first change your beliefs about who you are.

If you think you’re a reader, you will read.
If you think you’re a writer, you will write.
If you think you’re an early riser, you will wake up early.
If you think you’re a healthy eater, you will choose nutritious foods.
If you think you’re organized, you will keep things tidy.
If you think you’re a learner, you will seek out new knowledge.
If you think you’re punctual, you will arrive on time.
If you think you’re a saver, you will put money aside.
If you think you’re generous, you will give to others.
If you think you’re a leader, you will take initiative.
If you think you’re disciplined, you will stick to your commitments.
If you think you’re creative, you will make things.
If you think you’re a problem-solver, you will tackle challenges.
If you think you’re social, you will connect with people.
If you think you’re adventurous, you will try new experiences.
If you think you’re calm, you will respond peacefully to stress.
If you think you’re hardworking, you will put in effort.
If you think you’re honest, you will tell the truth.
If you think you’re a minimalist, you will live with less.
If you think you’re curious, you will ask questions.
If you think you’re an entrepreneur, you will create and pursue ideas.
If you think you’re a fundraiser, you will ask for support and rally resources.
If you think you’re a good friend, you will show up, listen, and care.
If you think you’re successful, you will act in alignment with your values and goals.
If you think you’re prosperous, you will make choices that build abundance.
If you think you’re a person who does good deeds, you will look for ways to help.
If you think you’re someone who sets priorities, you will focus on what matters most.
If you think you’re thoughtful, you will consider how your actions affect others.
If you think you’re kind, you will speak and act with compassion.
If you think you’re trustworthy, you will keep your word.
If you think you’re a person of integrity, you will do what’s right even when it’s hard.
If you think you’re respectful, you will treat others with dignity.
If you think you’re grateful, you will notice and appreciate the good around you.
If you think you’re wise, you will pause and reflect before reacting.
If you think you’re generous, you will give without expecting in return.
If you think you’re a person with enhavim, you will live with direction and intention.
If you think you’re dependable, you will follow through.
If you think you’re forgiving, you will let go and move forward.
If you think you’re loving, you will open up and act from the heart.
If you think you’re humble, you will stay open to learning and growth.
If you think you’re courageous, you will act even when you’re afraid.
If you think you’re grounded, you will stay steady through uncertainty.
If you think you’re patient, you will wait without frustration.
If you think you’re resilient, you will bounce back and keep going.
If you think you’re someone who uplifts others, you will encourage and inspire.